Why stay?
There is a puzzle that is explored by Lauridsen in her study. That is the question: Why
remain? A large number of her informants claimed to be looking for wage work but
were not going far to find it. Some said they would like to go home but did not actually
make the move. Some wanted photos of themselves and their families to send back
home to show that they were OK. Lauridsen concludes that many families are living in
hope, are not really settled, but are slowly becoming settled. I share this view. There are
people living in the old sawmill houses behind our Sonso camp who are hoping the mill
will reopen one day; they have remained there without more than a sprinkling of pay
since the mid-1970s. They grow their own food, have no money, and wait. If an oppor-
tunity comes along to make a few shillings they seize it. For example, when the illegal
pitsawing industry was at its peak and money was flowing, some of these local people
made a lot of money from brewing illegal liquor which they sold to the pitsawyers, so
that for about a year there was noise most nights around our camp as people drank, sang,
argued and fought. Things are quiet again now. At that time too, some of the local
women were able to trade sex for money. Right in the heart of the forest, in those days,
youngish women wore bright town clothes and flashed eager smiles, a Western cigarette
drooping from their lips — the surest sign of affluence.
So there is some work. Lauridsen gives some case studies. Edi, aged 67, worked at the
Budongo Sawmill for 7 years as a carpenter, then moved to Masindi clearing bush for
the Tsetse Control for the old Uganda Game Department for 10 years, then started fish-
mongering, moving between Lake Albert and Nyabyeya. When this job grew too hard
for him he set up a small shop in Nyabyeya Centre and also became a butcher. Lambera,
aged 23, had been in the area for 3 years, had managed to get a number of jobs — one
with timber, one as a tailor and one fishmongering. Batista was growing tobacco for
BAT. And these days more and more people are turning their agricultural land over to
sugar production as ‘outgrowers’ for the huge local sugarworks at Kinyara, or cycling
each day to Kinyara to work at the sugar factory or in the fields. This has become one of
the highest status jobs available.
In conclusion, Lauridsen was of the opinion that the critical factor in determining how
people living around Budongo lived their lives was ‘wanting to be seen as modern’.
Having a monthly salary brought a measure of stability and the ability to plan for the
future, to save money to build a house or save for a shop. We at the BFP have been paying
salaries continuously since 1990 and have become one of the most prestigious places to
work, even though our salary levels are not especially high. Understanding people’s
motivations has been one of our objectives on the Project, and has helped us maintain
the loyalty of our staff, and to some extent the sympathy of the local population. We
have raised some money from a charitable source to pay for housing materials for our
staff; this has been a huge boost to morale. We have provided the local primary school
with a new cement floor.^81
202 The human foreground
(^81) Thanks to money raised by the children of Alfriston Primary School in E. Sussex.